New Litigation Policy to focus on making Govt responsible litigant: Law Minister

Dear Sir,

It does not give comfort to the citizens (here I would assume the citizen as TAXPAYER community to large extent) that the Government would LITIGATE. This idea of litigation stands on the premise that there are two oppositions whereas the tax payers and Government are both work for the single purpose and one is the payer and other is collector.

I would quote from the Kautilya's Arthashashtra - the tax should be collected in a manner that the payer does not feel the pinch or not mind paying but enjoys.

How this could be achieved is the need today?

Why not some out of BOX ideas - leaving the legacies behind - with a theme that there would not be any litigation? laws should simple (written in simple language), clear in intent - not like the present day notifications (refer the recent notifications issued after the enactment of finance bill - which starts with referring to the clauses of the finance bill and then the rules - "remove the word 'a" from the second para of the sub-section 3 of the proviso i of the clause 107 etc - how difficult is this to link all the notifications to their origin or original rules/acts etc) and language " it is in public interest to do so etc? is there no way to change the "geography" of these notifications with simple and easy to connect language.

In fact such language clubbed with the "adversarial" attitude is the root cause of litigation and the political masters came to know the small part of the problem when it impacts the "FDI" industry. The general desi community (manufacturers, service providers etc) are not heard generally.

The example of responsible litigant is that even after the decisions from the judicial forums, the same issue is litigated again and again either by differentiating the earlier decisions on flimsy grounds or by issuing circulars or lastly by amending the law retrospectively.

I just wonder whether the TARC report has been read/seen by the political leadership? that report throws some light on thus aspect also besides other important matters.

Now we have the Shah Commission - another commission - why not clear the air by "intent" whether want to tax or not? If no tax going forward - why look backward - one more amendment and all will be cleared. By the way the amount is also reduced from 50000 crores to just 600 crores.

The directive of the State Policy should be kept in mind - even if the corporate/companies fight the cases - it is the individual citizen of India who does all the hard working to prepare all the details/data and lots of time and paper (refer my last write up on the litigation - how much paper is wasted as a result of EA 2000 Audit and after wards - just to collect five lakh rupees each year).

Arbind Aggarwal

Arbind Aggarwal 21/05/2015